Remember the hoopla a few months ago when a young, libertarian entrepreneur named Cody Wilson announced that he had constructed the first functional 3D printed gun? And the growing outcry from the hoplophobes about “Ghost Guns” and so-called 80 percent lower receivers for AR-style rifles?
Now Wilson and his company, Defense Distributed, has introduced a small, self-contained, computer-controlled milling machine that can finish an 80 percent AR lower in just a couple of hours. Dubbed the “Ghost Gunner,” in honor of State Sen. Kevin DeLeon, D-Calif., it’s sort of the microwave of milling machines. Just insert an 80 percent lower, push the start button, and after a while, out pops a finished receiver. The machine sells for $1,500 and comes with everything you need to get started.
That’s got the professional hoplophobes of the Bloomies and the Bradys all in a tizzy all over again. Wilson announced the release of the new machine just days after Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., introduced new legislation to require that all homemade guns be regulated in the same manner that commercially manufactured guns are. This is sort of funny when you consider the claims from the same hoplophobes that the gun industry is completely unregulated. But all of the hand-wringing and legislation writing is just further proof that these people really have no idea what they’re talking about. They seem to think that guns are some magical creations forged in high-tech furnaces in hell. They clearly believe that making a firearm requires sophisticated machinery and highly specialized skills.
Well I’m here to tell you they’re wrong. Guns are not complicated in the least. A gun is basically just a hollow tube that can be closed off on one end. While “printing” the parts for an all-plastic, single-shot zipgun is a nifty concept, actually making a similar gun from wood, pipe and nails is really not difficult at all. I could easily manufacture such a functional firearm from a few pieces of junk in my garage in a couple of hours using nothing more than a drill, a saw and maybe some files. A working shotgun would be even easier.
Printing a lower receiver for an AR-style rifle is also pretty cool, but again, I could carve or build the same thing with little more than a drill press. Mine probably wouldn’t be quite as pretty, but it would be just as functional, if not a little better. And while I probably have a bit more knowledge about the internal workings of various firearms than most people, I don’t have a particularly advanced skill-set. There are examples on the Internet of people making functional AR lowers from blocks of wood and from plastic cutting boards.
I built my first functional firearm in a first-year, high-school machine shop class when I was 14 years old. I followed that up with the parts to build a fully functional machine gun the next year. I stopped short of actually finishing the machine gun because that would have been illegal, but the reason it was going to be a machine gun was that semi-auto is more complicated than full-auto, and I didn’t have the skills to pull it off then.
To build a high-quality, accurate firearm from scratch does require some specialized machinery and skills, but everything you need to build something that will shoot and be passably accurate at short range can be found in any hardware store. And if you want to build something really accurate and reliable, all of the tricky parts are readily available on the open market. The only part of a gun that is highly regulated is the actual receiver, and for guns like the AR or the AK, the receiver is one of the easiest parts to fabricate. But even with the relative ease of making an AR receiver, the rest of the parts needed to construct a good, functional firearm will cost a builder at least $500, and probably substantially more, on top of the time and money invested in the receiver.
Perhaps in a few years, when the prices of 3D printers and personal CNC milling machines come down even further, it will eventually be easier and cheaper to build a gun that way, but personally, I have no use for a machine that does all of the work for me. I’d much rather get my hands dirty and end up with something that I can really claim as my own.
As to the fears of the hoplophobes, they are completely unfounded. Development of these machines will not result in a flood of homemade guns suddenly showing up at crime scenes.
Criminals are, by and large, too stupid and lazy – and broke – to invest their money and time into this sort of techno-hobby. Those who do have the money, like the Mexican drug cartels, are not going to waste their time on small scale, one-at-a-time equipment when they can easily afford to hire skilled craftsmen and buy commercial CNC machines that can manufacture all of the vital components on an industrial scale. Two such operations were recently discovered in the Guadalajara area. Expect to hear about more illegal gun factories being found down there.
With the death of Hugo Chavez, and the shutdown of Operation Fast and Furious, the Mexican underworld is finding that the “Iron River” that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Hillary Clinton were so fond of talking about has dried up to a trickling stream. If they can no longer count on guns from the U.S. government via ATF, or from communist dictators, they’re naturally going to go into the firearm manufacturing business themselves. If we do begin to see an increase in “home-built” firearms involved in crime, you can bet that’s where they’ll be coming from.
As always, guns aren’t the problem. Criminals are.
Media wishing to interview Jeff Knox, please contact [email protected].
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